Digi, one of Malaysia's leading telecommunications service provider and Automation Anywhere, the global leader in Robotic Process Automation (RPA) co-hosted the first telco Botathon in Malaysia last week.

The Botathon allowed Digi employees to interact with software bots and Digital Workers from Automation Anywhere that work side-by-side with human workers to automate repetitive, daily tasks – liberating people to focus on higher-level business initiatives that only humans can provide. The initiative was part of Digi's Innovation 360°efforts to encourage employees to digitally transform by providing them with various platforms to apply innovation to their work and opportunities to upskill and develop new competencies.

"We believe in building a culture that gives our employees the freedom to explore, innovate and develop, with the aim of fostering an agile digital workforce that can adapt and evolve in our journey towards Industry 4.0. The Botathon was a fantastic way for our employees to develop new digital skills to automate processes, ultimately increasing operational efficiency and enabling them to build on the commitment to deliver excellence to customers," said Kesavan Sivabalan, Chief Technology Officer, Digi.

Digizens at the Botathon event

Earlier this year, Automation Anywhere announced that it was pioneering the concept of ready-to-
deploy human-centric Digital Workers – which are digital personas that combine task-oriented, cognitive and analytical abilities with automate repetitive activities. With Digital Workers taking on the robotic parts of employees' daily tasks, organisations can rapidly scale their automation initiatives to drive productivity, efficiency and growth.

Through the Botathon, Digi and Automation Anywhere brought together technical personnel and Digi employees across the organisation who identified manual processes to automate with the help of bots and Digital Workers. Apart from automating processes, employee engagement was another key objective of the Botathon – enabling employees to unleash their creativity and take ownership of automating day-to-day tasks.

As part of the collaboration, Digi employees will have access to the Community Edition of the
Automation Anywhere RPA software. This is in addition to training programmes and certifications from Automation Anywhere University to help them create Digital Workers.

"We are excited to have had the opportunity to jointly organise Digi's first Botathon, and to also be their RPA partner. We see great alignment in our visions to push the boundaries of innovation, and to ultimately augment the human workforce and accelerate digital transformation," said Ron Goh, President, ASEAN and Korea at Automation Anywhere. "This partnership marks the introduction of human-centric Digital Workers. It will enable Digi's Innovation 360° vision for employees to maximise their competencies and focus on delivering high-value expertise to their customers. We hope this continues to steer Digi toward better harnessing RPA to maximise efficiency and lead the industry through and with innovation."

The botathon builds on Digi's RPA journey that has the goal of automating all operational activities that are manual in nature by the end of 2019. In the past year, Digi integrated RPA into key activation processes and introduced digital workers across multiple departments.

Digi has a rich culture of innovation that encourages employees to explore and experiment through various platforms and tools. Platforms include MakerLab, which is a dedicated space in Digi's headquarters that allows employees to collaborate and learn through projects and experimentation, and the Red Explorer Team (RET), specialised teams formed to work on high impact digital projects.